Page 111 of Rejected By the Winter Wolf

Well, yeah.

“And morality is the reason the curse was cast in the first place.” She waves her hand.

“I…” I look around her kitchen again, this time trying to understand her. Who is this blood witch who lives in the middle of nowhere? She clearly doesn’t socialize very much, from what she said earlier about talking to people. Or witches, maybe. “Can I see your Mark?”

She smiles. “Of course.”

She rises from the table and unbuttons her shirt with slow, smooth movements. I’m not entirely fazed—a lot of witches have Marks on their ribcages or stomachs—but then she reaches behind her and unclips her bra. She bares her breast to me.

There’s a swirling pattern just below her nipple.

“Interesting placement, don’t you think?” She rebuttons her shirt, now without the bra, and sits back down. “I swear I won’t permanently injure the bond between you and the Winter Wolf. I won’t kill him, either. But we do need a sacrifice.”

She holds out her hand in offering.

Do I trust her?

Not really. But…

I take her hand anyway.

There’s an echo of magic around us, binding us to her promise. She grins at the noise, examining my hand in hers before she releases me.

“Be right back,” she murmurs. She keeps muttering, her words too obscured to hear her clearly.

The only words I catch are, stronger than I thought.

Is she talking about me?

After a few minutes, she returns with supplies. She sets a small handheld mirror on the table between us. The glass is scratched with use, the brass framing dull. She also has a bone knife and a crystal glass of water. A sapphire is at the bottom of the glass.

She extends her hand to me, palm up.

This is fine, I lie to myself.

I give her my left hand. She turns it so my palm is up, then picks up the knife. I wince in anticipation. She quickly slices it across my palm.

The pain is delayed, traveling down my arm only after the blood wells up on my palm. She keeps my hand cradled, but I don’t attempt to pull away.

She speaks a foreign tongue under her breath. Italian maybe, or French? It’s too fast for me to place it. Magic usually works just fine in our native language—so maybe that’s hers. Either way, I feel her magic lap at the edge of mine.

I squeeze my eyes shut, tamping down my reserves on instinct. She doesn’t attempt to draw my magic out. It’s just trying to connect, I think. I’m still weak. She could overpower me like this. She could rip through my defenses and kill me.

After all, she only promised not to hurt Kian. Nothing was said about my safety.

Beatrice goes quiet and tips my palm over the mirror. A drop falls, then another.

Maybe she wasn’t joking about scrying with blood.

The surface of the mirror ripples. She grips my hand tighter, feeding it more blood, until the glass absorbs it. The mirror vibrates. It’s so slight, if I wasn’t staring at it with such horror I might’ve missed it. But it transforms under my gaze, the scratches and dullness disappearing. The finish is replaced with shine, the whole thing gleaming in a matter of seconds.

Her murmuring picks back up. She releases my hand and takes the knife again, this time cutting herself. She dips her blood-tinged fingers into the crystal glass and fishes out the sapphire. Carefully, she presses the gemstone into her cut. She takes my hand like she’s shaking it, aligning our cuts. Our blood drips down together, mixing, and it sizzles on the mirror.

This time, the magic is dragged from me without my consent. I cry out, but she doesn’t relent. She pours it into the stone, her voice rising.

I look up.

Her eyes are pure black.